ATDDTA(11) Nice Tommyknockers [297:35ff]

[Keith]

[297:11-12] "Even Frank [...] could tell that it was haunted up here."
[297:17-18] "the presences that moved quickly as marmots at the edges
              of the visible" are perhaps a reference to tommyknockers.

  "Superstitions continued when many a family death or disaster was  
allegedly foretold by a knocking in the house."
    --last sentence in the reference immediately below

Maybe the "Goodness! It's a marmot" was a tommyknocker:

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The Cornish believed these wee little men were the souls of the Jews  
who crucified Christ and were sent by the Romans to work as slaves in  
the tin mines. This belief was so strong that the Tommyknockers were  
allegedly never heard on Saturdays, nor at times of Jewish festivals.

TommyknockerAbout two feet tall, and often described as greenish in  
color, they look like men and are most often spied wearing a  
traditional miner’s outfit.  Living beneath the ground, they have  
been “known” to have committed both good and bad deeds through the  
centuries, often playing practical jokes and committing random acts  
of mischief, such as stealing unattended tools and food.

The Tommyknockers were first heard of in the United States when  
Cornish miners worked in the western Pennsylvania coal mines in the  
1820’s.  When the California Gold Rush began, these experienced  
Cornish miners were welcomed and often sought after by the mine  
owners.  Attempting to recruit more minders, managers often  
approached the immigrants, asking if they had any relatives back in  
England who might come to work the mines. The Cornish miners would  
reply something like this: "Well, me cousin Jack over in Cornwall  
wouldst come could ye pay ’is boat ride."  Soon, these many immigrant  
miners took on the nickname Cousin Jacks, who formed the core of  
America’s early western mining workforce.  As such, their  
superstition of the Tommyknocker thrived and spread throughout the  
mines of the west.

The name “knockers,” pronounced “knackers,” comes from the knocking  
on the mine walls that often happens just before cave-ins.  Actually  
caused by the creaking of earth and timbers, some thought these  
sounds of “hammering” were malevolent, indicating certain death or  
injury, while others saw their “knocking” as well-meaning, warning  
the miners that a life-threatening collapse was imminent.  Yet,  
others believed that the knocking sounds would lead them to a rich  
ore body and or signs of good luck.

When these grizzled little gnomes were good, they were thought to  
bring miners favors and wealth.  But when they were bad, they were  
said to bring about misery, injury, and death to those who doubted  
their power or who did not believe in them.

These highly spirited characters were also known to perform many of  
the mining duties, working right along side the men, as well as being  
blamed for many a prank, and credited with saving the lives of many  
miners. If a hammer was missing, it was the Tommyknockers who had  
taken it, but if a miner escaped a collapse, the Tommyknockers were  
given credit.
	
Later, the legend of the Tommyknockers evolved into the idea that the  
knockings were caused by dead miners who were kind enough to give  
warnings of danger to the living.  In praise of these kind gestures,  
the miners would leave offerings of food and other items in order to  
secure their good graces and protection.

In some mines, where the Tommyknockers’ presence was known to be  
overwhelmingly malevolent, the mines were forced to close because of  
the mens’ fear of the spirits.  When the mines played out, the legend  
continued as many said the Tommyknockers found “work” in the homes  
surrounding the old mineshafts.  Superstitions continued when many a  
family death or disaster was allegedly foretold by a knocking in the  
house.
   http://www.legendsofamerica.com/GH-Tommyknockers.html

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“Tommyknockers” or the Spirits of the Underground

by Carl Barna

Mining is an ancient profession. Odd sounds, darkness, and dangers  
are present underground. Almost without warning, a person can die or  
suffer serious injury underground. Mines provide fertile ground for  
the imagination. The work is done in a setting that supports the rise  
of legends and folklore. The stories let us peek into the life of  
miners.

One example of folklore about underground mining is the belief in  
Tommyknockers.  They are the spirit creatures of the underground.  No  
one knows exactly when or where these tales began.  They were present  
by medieval times in the area that is now Germany and Austria.

Germans call them Berggeister or Bergmännlein.  This means “mountain  
ghosts” or “little miners.” They watch over the earth’s precious ores  
and metals. They look like men, but are two feet tall or less. They  
wear the traditional miner’s outfit. They are believed to be active  
in gold, silver, and other metal mines. These spirits can be good or  
bad, helping or hurting miners. When they are good, they bring hard  
working miners favors and wealth.  When they are bad, they hurt  
miners who doubt their power or do not believe in them. They can also  
bring misery, fear, and death when they are mad. Earthquakes were  
once believed to be their handiwork. Some mines have even been  
abandoned because of the miners’ fears of these spirits.

Cornish people formed the core of America’s early western mining  
workforce.  They called the mine spirits Tommyknockers.   
Tommyknockers were similar to the German Berggeists. The  
Tommyknockers watched over the mines, and could bring miners rewards  
or punishments. Some believed that the knocking noises they made  
would lead miners to a rich ore body.  Others believed that the  
knocking was a warning of danger, but that the miner who first heard  
it would die.

Later, miners believed that the knockings were dead miners giving  
warnings of danger to the living.  Working miners left clay dolls of  
these spirits at mine entrances. They left offerings of food and  
other items in order to secure their good graces and protection.

Today, the belief in the ’Knockers is long gone. Modern systems of  
education and scientific approaches to mining have replaced earlier  
superstition and belief. Electric lights make the mines less gloomy.  
Modern machinery makes the noises made by wooden timbers and rock  
walls impossible to hear.  The folklore of the underground has lost  
some of its meaning but keeps its entertainment value.
   http://www.blm.gov/heritage/HE_Kids/tommy_knock.htm

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They're half the height, but what the hell:

Homunculus of Alchemy

The term appears to have been first used by the alchemist Paracelsus.  
He once claimed that he had created a false human being that he  
referred to as the homunculus. The creature was to have stood no more  
than 12 inches tall, and did the work usually associated with a  
golem. However, after a short time, the homunculus turned on its  
creator and ran away. The recipe consisted of a bag of bones, semen,  
skin fragments and hair from any animal, of which the chimeric  
homunculus would be a hybrid. This was to be laid in the ground  
surrounded by horse manure for forty days, at which point the embryo  
would form.

In Carl Jung's studies of Alchemy, he believed the first record of a  
homunculus in alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of  
Zosimos, written in the third century A.D, although the actual word  
"homunculus" was never used. In the visions, Zosimos mentions  
encountering a man who impales him with a sword, and then undergoes  
"unendurable torment," his eyes become blood, he spews forth his  
flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated  
anthroparion, and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into  
himself," which is a rather grotesque personification of the  
ouroboros, the dragon that bites its own tail, which represents the  
dyophysite nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos  
later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man,  
the Leaden Man, and so forth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit  
themselves to unendurable torment" and undergo alchemic  
transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an  
artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying  
inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.[1]

There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant  
involved the use of the mandrake. Popular belief held that this plant  
grew where semen ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive  
spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely  
resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked  
before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed"  
with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it  
would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and  
protect its owner. Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus  
at the University of Giessen during the 18th century, was to take an  
egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace  
a bean-sized portion of the white with human semen, seal the opening  
with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of  
the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg  
after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return  
for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus

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